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CHICAGO — For many older Americans who lost jobs during the recession, the quest for health care
has faced one obstacle after another. They’re unwanted by employers, rejected by insurers,
struggling to cover rising medical costs and praying to reach Medicare age before a health
crisis.

These luckless people, most in their 50s and 60s, have emerged this month as early winners under
the nation’s new health-insurance system. Along with their peers who are self-employed or whose
jobs do not offer insurance, they have been signing up for coverage in large numbers, submitting
new-patient forms at doctor’s offices and filling prescriptions at pharmacies.

“I just cried, I was so relieved,” said Maureen Grey, a 58-year-old Chicagoan who finally saw a
doctor this month after a fall in September left her in constant pain. Laid off twice from
full-time jobs in the past five years, she saw her income drop from $60,000 to $17,800 a year. Now
doing temp work, she was uninsured for 18 months before she chose a marketplace plan for $68 a
month.

Americans ages 55 to 64 make up 31 percent of enrollees in the new health-insurance
marketplaces, the largest segment by age group, according to the federal government’s latest
figures. They represent a glimmer of success for President Barack Obama’s beleaguered law.

The Great Recession hit them hard, and for some its impact has lingered.

Aging boomers are more likely to be in debt as they enter retirement than were previous
generations, with many having purchased more-expensive homes with smaller down payments, said
economist Olivia Mitchell of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. One in 5 has unpaid
medical bills, and 17 percent are underwater with their home values. Fourteen percent are
uninsured.

As of December, 46 percent of older jobseekers were among the long-term unemployed compared with
less than 25 percent before the recession.

And those financial setbacks happened just as their health-care needs became more acute.
Americans in their mid-50s to mid-60s are more likely to have diabetes than other age groups,
younger or older, accounting for 3 in 10 of the adult diabetes diagnoses in the United States each
year. And every year after age 50, the rate of cancer diagnosis climbs.

The affordable coverage is “an answer to a prayer, really,” said Laura Ingle, a 57-year-old
Houston lawyer who had been denied coverage repeatedly because she has sarcoidosis, an autoimmune
disease. She recently had back surgery for a painful condition that has been bothering her for
months.

The abundance of older patients signing up is no surprise to the Obama administration, which
conducted internal research last year that showed the “sick, active and worried” would be the
most-responsive to messages urging them to seek coverage.

Signing up younger, healthier enrollees is seen as more difficult, but crucial to keeping future
insurance rates from increasing. The administration said those age groups may put off enrolling
until closer to the March 31 deadline.

“We have always anticipated that those with more health needs would sign up early on, and that
young and healthy people would wait until the end,” administration spokeswoman Joanne Peters
said.

Some of the aging boomers were determined to get coverage in the marketplace, despite repeated
problems and frustration with the federal website.

The hours spent online and over the phone paid off for Akron real estate agent Greg Burke and
his beautician wife, Pat. The empty nesters qualified for a tax credit that will lower their
monthly health insurance premiums by nearly half.